2-17-2014
You can?t guarantee success, but you can deserve it. ? John Adams
I wish there were a foolproof recipe for being a successful market manager that I could follow like I was baking a cake. Sadly, there isn?t. But there are some things I plan to focus on in 2014.
See people face-to-face whenever possible. I want to engage employees and clients face-to-face whenever possible in 2014. There?s a great line in the film We Are Marshall: Matthew McConaughey (playing a football coach) is urging David Strathairn (school president) to ask the NCAA in person for a special exemption. He says he?d bet the school president didn?t propose to his wife over the phone and she didn?t accept by writing him a letter. And so it goes in sales and management. Relationships start with communication, and the most meaningful communications are direct and in person. Know your (and the competition?s) audience. To hit a mark, you need to know what your target is. It?s the same thing with ratings ? not only quantitatively, but qualitatively as well. Consumer tendencies, buying habits, trends, everything we can learn about the people we are trying to reach will help us to deliver a product more in tune with what they want. For example, traffic information is important, but which roads do your listeners care about? Research has helped a lot, but it?s important to have a first-person understanding of your station?s audiences and your clients? customers. When selling with numbers, it?s important to not only know what the numbers are, but why the numbers are.
Get out of your office. I?ve never closed a lot of business sitting at my desk. A market manager needs to be visible with employees, clients, and especially the community. Be in meetings. Spend time in production or traffic. Go to other managers? offices for internal meetings. Get out to see clients. Go to your station events when you can. Be involved in your market. Attend events and charity galas. Show up at the ribbon-cutting for that big client. Go to the breakfast business event featuring the politicians. Corporate owners are often the industry face of the company. But as market managers, we are often the local face of our stations to the communities we serve.
Help the community ? and help yourself. ?Awareness is the cornerstone of caring, which is the first step in giving.? Being involved in local media provides us with awesome opportunities to help our communities. Our airtime is helpful in raising awareness of charities, causes, and community initiatives. So find those that are important to your listeners, advertisers, and employees, and support them with PSAs, public affairs opportunities, postings on your websites, and, when possible, with sponsorships and donations. Make your stations a vibrant part of the community by finding things to be involved in. Lead by example, and encourage and support your employees? involvement. Being an involved and helping corporate citizen makes your stations, and you, more credible, influential, and powerful.
Get busy living with digital ? or get busy dying. Not every company has the resources to make the
upfront investment in an internal digital structure that will yield a return on investment. But passion and belief in new platforms starts with us. If you are not on board, or not interested in how digital can become a meaningful part of your revenue mix, then your employees won?t be either. Radio is perfectly suited to making digital marketing programs thrive. Our proprietary relationship with our listeners combined with how ?what we hear makes what we see more memorable? makes radio conducive to producing results with multi-platform marketing programs. And a smart social media initiative can only help keep us connected with a rapidly changing, dynamic audience. Get on the digital train. It starts with you.
Make corporate your partner. I keep a copy of the old Hans Christian Andersen story ?The Emperor?s New Clothes? in my office. It?s to remind me that telling people what they want to hear often leads to overconfidence and failure. It happens between us and our employees, and it can happen between us and our corporate offices as well. Stop spinning, and start communicating. Of course we want our bosses to think we are doing a wonderful job, but being on the front lines in a market can make yours a valuable perspective for a corporate team. Our ultimate job is not only to protect their investment, but to grow it. As market managers, we need to communicate openly, directly, and honestly ? not just about the good, but the not-so-good as well. Like in The Godfather: Deliver bad news
quickly.
Be open to new eyes on old problems. Our business is changing every day, and more than ever I am trying to look at things in different ways. I?ve always said confidence is being comfortable with what you don?t know. Lastly, in 2014, I?m going to try to have fun. It?s why we got into this business in the first place, isn?t it?
Dave Widmer is GM and market manager for Connoisseur Media/Long Island and can be reached at 631.770.4200 or dave.widmer@connoisseurli.com.
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